Holding Still for as Long as Possible (25 page)

“Yes, I have. I know. Doesn't mean I can't feel jealous.”

“Sure. Anyway, Billy, I have to go. I figured you wouldn't want me around at Roxy's party so I turned Amy down, but I wanted you to hear it from me before it got around.”

“Sure, sure.” I didn't mention my anxiety attack. When I hung up, I felt more alone than ever. I practically ran home, took two pills, and fell asleep for fourteen hours. When I woke up, I put on my new vintage dress and got ready for Roxy's birthday that evening.

But all I felt was hollow and bone-tired and ready to let everything in the world slip away.

[ 26 ]

Amy

I woke up late the day of Roxy's birthday party, the clock on the bedside table (
IKEA
, the Hemnes, $129 in dark wood ) blared a furious orange-red that matched the inside lining of my eyes. I could see them in the bedside mirror. I reached out, clutched the clock and threw it across the room. 12:08 p.m. landed with a thud.

I'm done.

I woke up late and in the same bed with Josh, both our mouths dry and skin tight for lack of water. We shared vague memories of fighting like fiends the night before on a crowded dance floor at the Gladstone. I felt ashamed to have been so public about the fact that our supposed flawless transition from lovers to friends was less and less so.

When we'd first broken up, it had been such a relief that we'd found ourselves being nicer to each other than we had been all year. Just saying the words “breaking up,” admitting it could happen, took all the fear out of it. People broke up all the time.

But things hadn't felt so cut-and-dried last night; they'd felt worse and worse, actually, in the few days since I'd met Maria and come home to find Josh in distress. Last night, Josh had had some sort of revelation while sitting at the bar nursing his glass of rye and ginger. He was the kind of drinker who had revelations. It would have been great if he could just chat like a normal guy, then come up with some gradual observations. But, no. He was silent and awkward, refusing to make small talk, until suddenly he was Buddha.

The tiny bartender with long black hair poured me a vodka-soda, flirting expertly. It felt good to be wanted again. Josh laughed to himself, choked a little on the peppery rye, before pronouncing his revelation.

“Our relationship is like a dead baby.”

I turned my head towards him, eyebrows raised as if to say,
I'm not amused
, while the bartender took someone else's order.

“Like, we'll be watching
TV
or chatting over breakfast, totally fine with our decision to break up, when all of a sudden a dead baby appears in front of us.”

“What?”

“It's like we try to ignore it but then we're unable to look away. We lose sight of everything except our relationship, clutching its cold body, trying to revive it.”

“That's a really sick analogy.”

Josh laughed between sips. “It's a metaphor. We can't let go.”

I had given him a disapproving stare. I hated the way I knew it looked on my face. I hated the way it felt. But it was involuntary.

The only solace I had felt all night was the vibration of my phone, signalling text messages from Maria. I guess I needed a new crush to get rid of the old one.

The last text message from Maria had said,
I'm here. Playing pool in melody room.

I texted back:
Stalker?: )

I told Josh I was going to the bathroom, walked into the adjoining room and caught Maria's eye while she was trying to make a shot. When she pushed up her shirt sleeve, I could see the marks my fingernails had made on her forearms earlier in the week. She blushed and missed, then winked at me.

In the bathroom stall, we made out maniacally, tearing at each other's clothes and laughing.

“I wish we could hang out tonight,” she said. “Can you ditch the ex?”

“Sorry, I can't. We're trying to work on our friendship, and I'd be pissed if he ditched me to fuck his new girlfriend.”

“Billy,” she stated. I scanned her face for signs of annoyance. The last thing I needed was someone else hung up on Billy.

“Yeah, he's dating Billy,” I deadpanned.

“This whole thing is pretty bizarre. I don't care, though. I mean, stuff with Billy and me was over a long time ago.”

“Yeah, and we'll have plenty of time together later on, right? It's one night, not a big deal.”

“Right,” Maria said, kissing my neck and kicking open the stall door.

“It would be good, if we're all friends. There's no lack of love, right?”

“Right,” Maria said. “Of course not.”

I straightened my skirt and applied a new coat of lip gloss.

We staggered out and by the time I got back to the bar, Josh was again looking solemnly into his drink. A cute girl was eyeing him, pointing to him and then talking to her friend.

Every time I looked at Josh, my reflex was still to think:
Mine. Always.

I had to work on that.

[ 27 ]

Josh

Billy would've laughed at the dead baby remark, would have revelled in the gruesome. She'd told me an abortion joke and a rape joke within the first ten minutes of our first date. Of course, she'd apologized and blushed and tried to make it seem as if she didn't normally talk like that, but I soon realized I'd met my cynical and crass match. Paramedics have a specific sense of humour. You have to, or else what else would you do? Probably slit your wrists. Amy's sense of humour wasn't so dark. It bothered me now.

I used to think Amy was a better person than me for not imagining the worst, for not turning everything into a statement about the end of the world. Now she seemed naive.

Last night, four drinks in, Amy and I were straining to have fun together like we used to and our interaction broke down. We fought on the dance floor, arms in motion, eyes wide. The
DJ
played Justin Timberlake and everyone else rejoiced in a shared ironic love of Top 40. Amy and I stood still among the frenetic motion. The song, like every song, was about love. We stood, finished, while around us everyone danced.

I felt guilty for insisting in my stupor to Amy, “You just don't want me to be happy, do you?” In the heat of my drunk I'd felt vindicated, relieved, almost victorious.

I stood outside the glass doors of the bar, smoking, watching Amy laugh too loudly while the bartender brought her more shots and leaned in close, touching her arm, every once in a while turning to nod at me through the window, then turning back to Amy as if to say,
What's so special about hi
m? Y
ou can do better.

When I returned to the bar, Amy introduced me to the bartender: Sandy. Sandy poured me a shot, slid it across the bar like a symbol of amity, and winked.

“Is this pretty girl your girlfriend?”

Amy rolled her eyes and laughed nervously.

“Nope, not any more.”

“You think I gotta shot, then?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“I think I gotta shot,” Sandy said, smiling in a way that was at once challenging to my masculinity and slightly flirtatious. She gave Amy one bravado-laced glance before turning to another customer.

I pictured Sandy and Amy kissing. It made me sick and turned me on, like the first time I saw a porno mag and my face went flush and I thought I might throw up, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant.

You just don't want me to be happy, do you
?
The words taunted me now as I got out of bed to fill a plastic cup with tap water in the bathroom. I rinsed my sticky garbage mouth, trying in vain to end the gasping hangover. Regret:
You are a fucking idiot. You are a piece of trash.

The hangover felt like an injury, one obtained from a fall while trying to execute a prank or a fabulous performance. It was not supposed to happen like this. Amy and I had broken up months ago, but still here we were, in the same bed, entwined, like a stubborn stain creeping out towards everything else in our lives, one brave toe or outstretched finger at a time.

“Is
she
going to be at Roxy's party tonight?” Amy asked as I came back into the bedroom. I noted the
she
. Any female person. Third person. Removed.

“Yes, Billy will be there. Roxy is her roommate, remember?”

When Amy got jealous she couldn't stop asking questions she didn't want to know the answer to. It burned her, but she couldn't stop wanting to know. I didn't bother with questions like that. I took a deep breath and pretended jealousy didn't get to me. If you pretended enough, it became true.

I looked frantically through the sock drawer for the perfect pair of green and yellow striped soccer socks. My lust for Billy was so tangible it was something I could hold in my hand. All Billy had to do was say my name —
Hi, Josh.
How's it goin
'?
— and something in me unravelled. I half expected a cartoon heart to thump out of my chest. This sounds like a fun feeling, but it's not.

In my line of work, I saw people who were so unhinged, so messy with snot and screaming, so desperate. I knew this was likely why I was attracted to contained and forthright people. Like Amy used to be, before confidence turned to arrogance, before independence looked so aloof and cold.

“What about your new crush?” I parried. “Your little clandestine affair?” The hickey on Amy's neck made me perversely thankful.

“I don't know if it's anything, really.”

“But you don't consider my feelings,” I said.

“You don't get jealous,” she said. “You're like a fucking robot.”

I turned away without saying anything.

“So, you're hanging out with that medic Jenny now, as well as Billy?” she persisted.

My attraction to Jenny was this: Jenny never objected to anything. She was so easygoing it was like she was a straight guy. She didn't get jealous. When I told her I had something complicated with Billy, she didn't get upset. She didn't make demands. She was fun to be around. I'm not sure why. It felt good to have an uncomplicated relationship. And she knew exactly what she wanted. Or didn't want. “I don't want a boyfriend,” she'd said, the first time we hung out after work. “I'm done with that for a few years. But I want to make out with people.”

When I told Jenny I was trans, she asked me questions, mostly medical, and she didn't have any of the transphobic /homophobic assumptions so common at
EMS
. I felt a little pried apart by her questions, but at the same time I understood and was used to it, somewhat.

Jenny's casual nature was a relief after Amy's erratic blank disregard followed by sudden possessiveness. And lately Billy made me feel too needy. It was as if I had to hang around waiting for her to say,
Okay, be my boyfriend already.
I couldn't fake my feelings, though. If Billy wanted to be my girlfriend, I'd say yes with no hesitation. She must have known that. Truth be told, I had spent a lot of time with Jenny talking about Billy, about how to
get
her to be my girlfriend.

“I don't know why I like Jenny,” I said to Amy. “I guess because she understands the job, right? She knows.”

“What about your life outside the job, huh? Can you actually see her hanging out with, like, me and Roxy and all of us? You think she won't be totally weirded out?”

“She's not like that. She has a great way about her, she listens really well. She's pretty open-minded.”

“Huh.”

I could see that this was the moment in today's conversation when Amy was going to stop listening to me. She looked at me as if she knew she was smarter than me, as if she couldn't believe she had to explain so many obvious things. When this happened, I found it didn't make sense to keep going. But Amy wouldn't quit.

“Does Jenny even get that you're trans? Does she have any politics? Has she ever even hung out with queer people?”

I didn't want to touch this line of questioning. Amy got all up-in-arms when she thought I might be considered a regular straight guy — as if I were betraying some big ol' revolution should my trans status not be a focal point.

“I should get my own place,” I said. “We can't be broken up and living together. It's just not healthy. At first I thought I wouldn't have to move, but now I think it might be a good idea.” I leaned against the dresser and pulled on one sock awkwardly.

“I know. I know.” Amy's cheeks reddened. She looked at me as if feeling a revulsion she'd never felt before.

I realized neither of us wanted to have a relationship like this. I wanted to tell her:
I'm not who I want to be. I'm not actually this person.
More than anything, I wanted the past to zoom forward, and I wanted the Amy who had changed my world to come back, even if just for an afternoon.